Many healthcare professionals and most healthcare organizations are familiar with using information technology and accessing systems for their own medical specialty, practice, hospital department, or administration. While these systems servicing these entities have proven that they can be efficient and effective, they have largely been isolated systems that have managed electronic patient data in a closed environment. These systems collected, stored, and viewed the data in homogenous and compatible IT systems often provided by a single company. Minimal, if any, connections to the outside world or “community” were established which eased the protection of patient data immensely. Current interfaces commonly used to communicate between systems have inherent limitations.
Increased computerization throughout the healthcare industry has given rise to a proliferation of independent systems storing electronic patient data. However, at the point of delivery, more care is being moved into the community and shared among different professionals and organizations. These changes require that patients' records must be transferred and combined. Many of the existing systems are capable of accessing data from others in their own hospital, hospital group, healthcare district, or organization. However, these islands of information are typically not capable of linkage and sharing of information with other islands in the community. Furthermore, as more systems are interconnected, the linkages and sharing problems increase exponentially and become unmanageable.